The world has lost the hugely influential Don Van Vliet AKA Captain Beefheart. The powerful voice, the dude’s musicianship (he played the sax, oboe, harmonica, among others) and the creativity with which he approached both his music and his art made him a true original. He died at age 69 after complications of multiple sclerosis, a disease he had been battling for years. Tom Waits, Mark E. Smith, Blondie and the members of New Order were fans. Rock and roll journalist Lester Bangs called him “one of the four or five unqualified geniuses to rise from the hothouses of American music in the Sixties”. Have a safe trip Beefheart. R.I.P.
